Valley Of Flowers

Across 42 races in total, she has won 5 times and placed 24 more — so she has been in the thick of it in well over half her races (29 of 42), even if the wins themselves have been harder to come by. That works out at roughly 1 win in every 8 races across her career, which is modest but honest for a horse operating mainly at Class 6 level — the bread-and-butter end of the sport, where competition is tough and margins are small. She has won twice from 20 races at that level, picking up a cheque in many more.

Her longest partnership has been with jockey Joanna Mason, who knows this horse better than anyone. Together they have won 4 of their 28 races — roughly 1 in every 7 — which accounts for most of Valley of Flowers' career wins. That kind of familiarity between horse and rider matters, and the numbers back it up.

The honest truth, though, is that she is currently in a quiet spell. Her last win came at Newcastle in October 2023, which is now 32 months ago, and her recent form reads 4-4-3-6-7-2 in reverse — a second place the best of it, with a few mid-field finishes mixed in. She shows up and competes, but the winning thread has been difficult to find of late. She does tend to run her best races on normal ground, winning 2 from 10 there — a 20% win rate, or 1 in every 5 — so conditions matter. She raced just yesterday, which means she is bang in the middle of an active campaign, and with Ayr on the calendar and the right ground underfoot, there is still every reason to think she can find the winner's enclosure again.